Late Middle Ages · Africa · Exploration

1354

Ibn Battuta returns to Morocco and dictates the Rihla

1354

Twenty-nine years after leaving Tangier, the Moroccan traveler returned home for good and was commissioned by the Marinid sultan to dictate the story of his journeys. The resulting Rihla, ghostwritten by the Andalusian scholar Ibn Juzayy, would become the medieval world's most expansive single account of three continents, describing courts, cities, and customs from West Africa to China.